1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to software asset management, and more specifically relates to a virtual RAS repository for facilitating the reuse of software assets.
2. Related Art
The organization and management of disparate stores of linked information is often a daunting task, especially for large enterprises. One example of this involves the management of the life cycle of a corporation's software assets. For instance, the following operations need to be managed:    (1) Acquisition: software components are received/generated by the corporation and are made available for deployment across the corporation;    (2) Deployment: the components are deployed to all users in the corporation who need them;    (3) Instantiation: the components are used as part of an application;    (4) Updates: as patches or product updates become available, instances of the components are updated;    (5) Customizations and extensions: in-house customizations and extensions to the components are distributed to users;    (6) Statistics: data is collected and analyzed for software investments, including usage, problems and local fixes; and    (7) Archiving: as components are phased out, they are archived.The management and organization of a corporation's software assets is further complicated when reusable software assets are involved.